The committee did not take a stance on whether the cap-and-trade program is issuing too many allowances, another question that A.B. 398 directed regulators to examine. The report’s chapter on allowance supply, written by Resources for the Future senior fellow Dallas Burtraw and Danny Cullenward, policy director for the think tank Near Zero, recommends that the state provide more data on how many allowances are being held by companies and perform analysis on various allowance supply scenarios.

“Without expressing a view on this question, the subcommittee suggests that going forward, additional technical disclosures and public analysis from CARB would help address the statutory direction on overallocation,” the report says.